Say Something Personal About: The Pixies' "Alec Eiffel"

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ok I'll go first. (warning, may be a bit bloggy)

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

(I admit that) I am one of those kids from nowhere who didn't give a shit abt music until Nevermind (okay maybe Green) (okay maybe Full Moon Fever) (okay maybe C+C Music Factory). As a young boy I felt like I COULD like music, that I wanted to, and I had the inkling that there was music out there that was interesting, but it wasn't around, and I didn't give it much thought (okay I loved 120mins esp the True Faith video [remember the vid for 'She Drives Me Crazy'? It was a total ripoff; it had people dressed in pillows jumping around, total tease: Yes! True Fai--oh shit no]) So match near-total rural cultural isolation with a v un-pop academic household, and there you have it. Not much music. Even tho I watched probably 4 hrs of MTV a day. Does that even count?

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I HATED classic/hard rock. I HATED IT. It seemed so stupid. (okay I had a tape of Appetite that I loved but I would skip over Jungle and listen to It's So Easy a few times, then skip the middle and listen to Think About You a few times) (and okay now that I think abt it Slippery When Wet meant a LOT to me as a 3rd grader) Blues-based major key party rock STILL raises my hackles (AC/DC ehh) and 'heaviness' as a whole seemed like a waste of time. Anything that would show up on one of M1ke P1tts' (haha if HE self-googles...) t-shirts was not for me. Rock = bullshit. I didn't pay attention.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:28 (twenty-three years ago)

(glimpse of another world [note only "another"]: one of the "bad kids," tho obv a difft variety of bad than the lunkhead buttrockers I was instructed to hate by family and state, called my house up once asking for me; he wanted to buy my skateboard which, totally unbeknownst to can't-even-olly me, was one of the cool decks that summer. I refused. He started grilling me on other matters of coolness: a string of bands I didn't know. The only name I can come up with now is Nitzer Ebb [!!!] [okay Dinosaur Jr just came to me])

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Enter l'Age d'Esprit Teen: our time i have a voice skool sux smart AND heavy whoa. It was a nice thing. But most of my friends were already under the full sway of rockisme, so Pearl Jam were seen as much more serious. And in the compression of memory it seems like it was about a week and half before the whole thing turned into Stone Temple Pilots and Candlebox. Bullshit eternal, boo hoo.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Enter also my older brother making me tapes (I assure you that these are actual real lived experiences and not a parody of white midwestern youth of the 90s) (and is this how Gina Arnold writes? hm okay I can continue avoid that then). He's much older (11 yrs) and had been a Deadhead, and to college at least twice. So I got shit like C V Beethoven, maybe King Crimson, Hendrix, punk classics (12XU! Gary Gilmore's Eyes! I was so young! Didn't light me on fire! sorry)

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:30 (twenty-three years ago)

BUT THERE WAS THIS ONE SONG. It just STARTED, no intro, I'M A NEE UM AN UNNA LAMPWIIIIICK!!! And then the bass came in, making it even bigger, only a phrase later. It didn't fuck around! It was so sharp and economical, and there were so many little twists and turns in it, it was ALL twist. LITTLE EIFFEL STANDS IN THE ARCHWAY, it was nearly blank, like an etude for a rock song, a demonstration, a prototype, it's wildness was very narrow. (LITTLE EIFFEL LITTLE EIFFEL) at the same time it was very knowing, very cheeky with its quotes of oldies radio tricks.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:30 (twenty-three years ago)

It seemed to have a story or at least a specific idea that it was 'about' but it also seemed to want to keep you from knowing what it was. I ~~didn't~~couldn't know the words completely, but it didn't matter; and that not-mattering seemed like the POINT of the not-knowing. [quote Reynold's glossolalia thing here maybe] (When I finally bought it and read the notes, the lyrics are pretty obvious, the skeleton of a narrative: genius struggles against haters, builds monument. There's a ROCK story for you, if you need to pay attention to it.) First experience grappling with 'WHAT does this mean vs. HOW does this mean' I had with any artwork, very very important. This one song on this one tape was all HOW; it's not hard to find a WHAT to yawp about, what difference does it make?

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

So here was a new template for cool: 1. feel things deeply, stay angry 2. never ever tell anyone what is in you 3. know everything 4. make shit up. (haha not very good at any of them, at 14 or now)

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

TWISTS: the standard line is that the Pixies gave the world the soft verse/loud chorus trick but nobody talks about the thing that I think is really key. It's a simple enough thing: they would construct their riffs around odd numbers of measures. So you'd have these basic downpicked eighth-note power chord riffs but they'd be five measures long (Gouge Away) or three (uh Hang Wire I think) instead of two or four. That's how they'd sound so offkilter and straightahead at the same time. Or: how they could love rock and slap it in it's stupid fucking face at the same time (so I needed to think then, abt the slap anyway).

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Before I figured that out w/r/t Alec Eiffel I had all those odd changes memorized. I knew it seemed to come at the wrong time but MAKE NO...SENSE!! hit the exact right wrong time. It's riff cycle is 5 1/2 measures long but they do a double time version of it in spots, and there are dynamic shifts within the riff, and the vocal is the same over the whole thing, chorus and all, so the oddity of construction passes under your radar. The car will go 100, sure, but the engine may fire a little funny, don't worry.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:32 (twenty-three years ago)

CODA: wtf did this come from? UnEARNed ha, the song is only like 2 mins long, how can it possibly support something so grand? Joey's neener-neener downward surf line, THEN doubled in thirds, and THEN Kim and the synth, and THEN the cherry-on-top of the feedback solo. If one wildly empty gesture is the secret to life, then why not pile on even more secrets? (I wonder how they 'got out' of that, actually, since on alb it closes with a fade. Anyone know a live version?)

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:32 (twenty-three years ago)

I've since ~~learned~~been taught what a small place in the world Pixiemusik holds, but the last 30 seconds of Alec Eiffel are, on consideration, if not my "standard of measure" for pop experience, at least where I lost my virginity (as it whir). I fell in love. It's even a bit sad to listen to it; what else could they have ever done, had they gone on? It makes the rest of the album worse. I wonder how they felt about it, if Mr. Francis had it in his head when he pink-slipped the rest of the band. They were done.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:33 (twenty-three years ago)

...and so am I!

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:34 (twenty-three years ago)

More people should do this sort of thing.

(I have no insights re Alec Eiffel, sorry)

― Ferg (Ferg), Monday, 12 May 2003 22:37 (twenty-three years ago)

shit is hawklike (what's with this song + great rants??)

― jones (actual), Monday, 12 May 2003 23:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Alec Eiffel = brilliance. None of today's indie monkeys can soar this high. Absolute exellence!!!

― William R Henderson (Cabin Essence), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 00:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I probably listened to Trompe Le Monde more than any other CD during my sophomore year of college. This tune was one of my favorites, along with "Letter To Memphis", "The Sad Punk", "Planet of Sound", and well pretty much the rest of the album.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 01:11 (twenty-three years ago)

"None of today's indie monkeys can soar this high."

that's a great line, and used so so perfectly.

what he/she said!

― coleslaw, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 01:47 (twenty-three years ago)

"Alec Eiffel" was one of my old roommate Bob's favorite songs off that record (which is to say it was one of his favorite songs, period) around the time he suffered a brain aneurysm, nearly died, and wound up with a whole host of vestigal effects that have made his life since very different. Hearing it--or hearing it mentioned--has very bittersweet associations, personally.

― Lee G (Lee G), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 02:08 (twenty-three years ago)

My friend Toby got a tattoo of the weird Eiffel Tower image in the Trompe le Monde art stretching from his shoulder to his elbow.

― paul cox (paul cox), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 02:09 (twenty-three years ago)

there's nothing personal or emotional about the pixies and that's the way i like it

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 02:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I can still remember my friend Jason singing that song in physics class in high school.

The Pixies was the band all my friends agreed on most in high school and some of my fondest memories are taking school-night road trips out of town for Pixies concerts, to St. Louis and Nashville (I'm from Memphis), and driving back right after, straight from the concert to school the next morning. At the St. Louis show we were there early and loitering around outside the theater and could hear the band soundchecking, snuck up a fire escape and into the balcony to watch. When they played "Letter to Memphis" we all started screaming (I know it's about Memphis, Egypt .. thanks) and security chased us out. I remember one friend almost falling in a dumpster scrambling back down the fire escape. Good times.

― chris herrington, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 02:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Tremendous track. Tremendous album.

And it's not often mentioned, but at least half the credit for its success goes to Gil Norton and Andrew Ballard, producer and engineer, respectively. One of the most amazing things about Trompe le Monde is its sound... take a song like "U Mass," fer instance. Comically simple. Guitar. Drums. But with just exactly that amount of reverb, and just exactly that amount of relative volume. It's stunning production that can turn such a rudimentary song into something so shiny and crispy. Even the screams sound otherwordly good.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 05:19 (twenty-three years ago)

The first time I heard this song I was convinced he was singing "little lightbulbs" (and why not? It makes just as much sense as most of the stuff that comes out of Frank Black's mouth!) and that's now become so firmly lodged in my brain that I can't think of it any other way.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 10:37 (twenty-three years ago)

it's funny, i actually do have personal stuff to say about alec eiffel, would you believe. it's one of the songs that really reminds me of the g/f. when she came over to my house, there were a few songs she'd always demand to hear, and play on repeat over and over. those songs include:

radiohead - idioteque
ryan adams - wildflowers
alec eiffel (obv)
wheat - don't i hold you?

she currently has my copy of trompe le monde, and is no doubt playing that song over and over in her own house as we speak, bless her soul.

as for the song itself, i like it quite a lot. the best track on an under-par album. and it's not just good because it makes me sigh fondly (that's just an added bonus.) so there.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 11:21 (twenty-three years ago)

greta track. my least fav pixies album. also the name of a great website/zine.

― kephm, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 13:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Has everyone already named their site after a Pixies song? I feel so lame.

http://www.giganticmag.com

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Paul, I remember a Toby with a pixies tatoo. Toby Holder, right?

― William R Henderson (Cabin Essence), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 15:32 (twenty-three years ago)

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